My family protected our home from the Dixie Fire. The government must help others do the same

This summer, the Dixie fire — one of the largest wildfires in California’s history — came within about four miles from our house. This megafire burned close to 1 million acres of forest, destroyed 1,300 buildings and killed at least one firefighter. That’s over two and a half months of heat, horrific air quality and various calls for evacuations my family and our community has had to endure.

This is, in part, due to a lack of fire management resources being put toward community resiliency in the off-season. Several factors — among them a changing climate, a century of U.S. Forest Service policy focused on fire suppression of all wildfires and overall forest mismanagement — may be contributing to this rise in ‘megafires’ we’ve seen over the last few years. If we’re going to find our way to a better situation, we need to invest in preventative measures, like preparing communities and returning to using “good” prescribed fire in the off-season.

My family moved to Susanville when I was four. At that time, the Diamond Mountain area had snow on it year round, and that snowpack was a major factor in replenishing the water table in our area.

In the early ’90s, I remember the mountain’s snowcap melting entirely for the first time. During last year’s Sheep Fire, we watched the forest around the mountain go up in flames. Without snowpack, and with infrequent rain, water is just not getting into the system. What’s left is miles of desiccated underbrush and ground cover.

The Dixie Fire started out burning slow for several days, and then it exploded. The conditions in our area were just right for a massive fire — strong winds, high heat and a surplus of dry ground cover in the area that built up during the decades we suppressed every fire we could.

At one point, the Dixie Fire reached 99% ignition for spot fires, meaning almost every single ember floating to a new spot would set that area ablaze. More than 6,000 firefighters were dispatched to help, but it wasn’t nearly enough.

This year, my family sheltered in place. We didn’t have a choice, as the evacuation centers were all full. Hotels as far away as Reno were booked up.

After the Sheep Fire — a 30,000 acre fire that also came close to our house — we put in a lot of defensive work around the property. As the front of the Dixie Fire approached our home, fire crews were dispatched to our area to assist in structure protection. The California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services fire crew assigned to our house assessed the property and informed me that the defensive measures taken previously — limbing trees and clearing ground fuels — made the property easy to defend, and that we were good to shelter in place.

Communities can help take some of the responsibility for making themselves defensible against wildfires, but they could benefit from government funding, resources and expertise. Funding for local staff who can go into communities in the off-season and implement preventative measures — working with homeowners and business owners to make their property more defensible by removing ground cover and adding more fire resistant materials — would save lives and property. Funding for fire management experts that can work with communities to identify problem areas and focus fire prevention efforts would increase the resiliency of our community.

Wildfires are becoming more intense and more frequent, many lasting for months on end. They cost taxpayers an exorbitant amount of money in emergency fire suppression and recovery efforts. We need a response scaled to the challenge we face. Unless we want to continue having bigger, badder, and longer-lived fires, we need to work on the problem and fund the solution year-round.